Billy is a sensitive boy, a dreamer who has never had a girlfriend and doubts he ever will. He's a young 18, emasculated and infantilised by his gorgon of a mother and wimp of a father. He has no job, and no prospects of one.
His only solace is his guitar. He sings about California, a place he has never visited, and "torrid" girls - more terra incognita . Then a girl called Isla takes a shine to him. There are kisses and topless massages, and stolen moments in seaside caves. She's lovely and lively, and probably too good for him. She'll be off to university in a couple of months; can the relationship survive?
Steven Geller and Frances Thorburn star in Simon Farquhar's play Candy Floss Kisses (2.15pm, Radio 4). Martin Jarvis directs.
If you can't face teenage angst, Thierry Fischer conducts Northern Sinfonia in Performance On 3 (7.30pm, Radio 3). They're tackling Messiaen's From the Canyons to the Stars, written to mark the US's bicentennial and once described as "a mighty creation, containing some of the most shockingly beautiful music of the last hundred years". The pianist is Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
Or there's The Long View (9am, Radio 4). Jonathan Freedland is in Portugal, where his guests consider the global response to last year's tsunami and the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which killed at least 100,000 people and destroyed 85% of the city's buildings. "What a game of chance human life is," Voltaire wrote 250 years ago.
